September 13, 2004

Cecil B. Demented (2000): B

“Demented forever!” is the rallying cry of Cecil B. Demented’s renegade cinematic terrorists, and while director John Waters’ latest film doesn’t totally make up for the disappointingly stale Pecker, it does prove that the director hasn’t completely forsaken his own deranged moviemaking urges. Cecil B. Demented (a hilariously over-the-top Stephen Dorff) is an independent filmmaker who, along with his militant gang of oddball cohorts – including Maggie Gyllenhaal, Adrian Grenier and Alicia Witt, all tattooed with the name of an iconic indie or old Hollywood filmmaker – is determined to crush modern cinema with a potent combo of firebombs and a fiery low-budget film starring kidnapped starlet Honey Whitlock (Melanie Griffith). Waters’ equal-opportunity critique slams modern Hollywood for its mawkish simplicity and unchallenging idiocy while simultaneously lampooning the fanatical lunacy of those who blindly champion independent film. The campy narrative is modeled on the Patty Hearst saga (as in many of his films, Hearst herself cameos), and though the filmmaking itself is somewhat flat and bland – despite the colorful set design and punk-metal soundtrack, there’s a genericness to the film’s mise-en-scène – Waters’ incisive deconstruction of hideous Hollywood blockbusters and egomaniacal, illogical fringe cinema fans is more than enough to sustain this mildly scabrous comedy.